The Evolution

In the beginning, there was On Deadline.

It quickly became a valuable tool for reporting breaking news, digger deeper into ongoing stories, surprising and delighting readers, and showing that we were out there surveying the media landscape to bring them valuable and sometimes just plain fun information.

That approach was brought to NPR in May 2009 with The Two-Way.

It is, first and foremost, a news blog. At the core of its mission is staying on top of what's happening, right now.

So, on days such as last Nov. 5:

We "live-blogged" the news from Fort Hood as it was coming in. That truly was a "river of news" that flowed past readers as quickly -- and accurately -- as we could pass it along. We looked to what our NPR colleagues were reporting, of course, but also to the best sources we could find from anywhere else. Those included the cable news networks, the wires, publications such as Army Times and the Army's Facebook page.

Or, on a much less serious note, on a day such as last Oct. 15, we followed right along as the rest of the nation watched that weather balloon float over Fort Collins -- and our readers chimed right in with some scientific analyses of their own.

The blog has other responsibilities, of course.

-- We want it to be a place where folks can come to get their day started by catching up on what's happened overnight.

-- It should be provocative without being opinionated.

-- It should be fun.

-- And while it certainly should spotlight the best that NPR has to offer, it also needs to be an "honest broker" that readers can come to knowing that we'll point them to important, credible stories no matter who's reporting them. If The Times or The Post or the BBC break something that people will want to know about, we'll tell them that too. They'll come back to us because of the trust we'll build up.

Through it all, I'm thinking about the person who wants timely, professionally reported/edited news and information/links of value -- and who doesn't mind once in a while being surprised/challenged a bit, having some fun, engaging in a conversation and contributing to the discussion.

A few other thoughts about what blogs like this are especially good for:

-- Covering breaking news.

-- Highlighting and expanding on exclusives.

-- Keeping track of ongoing stories.

-- Dealing with controversial subjects.

-- Surveying the media landscape.

-- Fun/touching/news-of-the-weird.

-- Explainers.

-- Interviews.

-- Peeling the onion.

Which all leads me to Surfing St. Louis and how I approached that assignment.